Day Seventeen...

When weather-beaten I come back; my hand
Perhaps with rude oars torn, or sun-beams tanned,
My face and breast of haircloth, and my head
With care’s rash sudden hoariness o’erspread,
My body a sack of bones, broken within,
And powder’s blue stains scattered on my skin;
If rival fools tax thee to have loved a man,
So foul, and coarse, as oh, I may seem then,
This shall say what I was: and thou shall say,
Do his hurts reach me? Doth my worth decay?
Or do they reach his judging mind, that he
Should now love less, what he did love to see?
That which in him was fair and delicate,
Was but the milk, which in love’s childish state
Did nurse it; who now is grown strong enough
To feed on that, which to disused tastes seem tough.

John Donne – Elegy 5